Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Yell0w]

I read almost all posts but I just can't remember:
Do we have OB with CFC
Can we just send 1-2 chariots to pillage neutral tiles in Spanish territory?

[kjn]

I read almost all posts but I just can't remember:
Do we have OB with CFC
Can we just send 1-2 chariots to pillage neutral tiles in Spanish territory?

Yes we have.

No, all our chariots are busy beating up the Germans. I'd really have loved to have a chariot there to pillage former Spanish towns.

[mostly_harmless]

Random thought: Can we pay someone else to kill that CFC chariot for us?

mh

[Bigger]

Yossarian would be more wary if he read the Diplomacy 3 game.

[pindicator]

Random thought: Can we pay someone else to kill that CFC chariot for us?

mh

Or to pillage by proxy?

[kjn]

Random thought: Can we pay someone else to kill that CFC chariot for us?

I think CivFr has a chariot relatively nearby, but it's only a 50-50 battle. And I'd rather have the Spanish impis kill CFC knights than CFC chariots.

[Mardoc]

North Korea. Missle tests. International reaction, North Korea usually gets some kind of humanitarian relief to buy them off. Or: My infant. Throwing punches. Does not get a fucking lollipop.

Yep. That's the difference, all right. North Korea is dealt with by nation-states, who only want to minimize the cost to themselves. Everyone knows it only kicks the can down the road, but it's cheap.

Your child, on the other hand, is dealt with by you, who cares about moral development and long term behavior. You're willing to accept some pain now for the betterment of your kid. Also, you have near complete control of the situation.

I think we should treat CFC as a nation state, not as a child. We don't have enough power to reform them if we tried, and we don't have to interact with them more than the next hundred turns or so. So treat them as a nation-state, and buy them off if it's the cheapest option. Frankly, they're not important enough to us to do more than that.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Random thought: Can we pay someone else to kill that CFC chariot for us?

mh

Or to pillage by proxy?

I'm pretty sure both of these would be violations of our NAP. But if it's only the letter of the NAP that matters and not the spirit, perhaps our self-proclaimed "dickbag lawyer" could say a word about it? There may be some evasive bit of lawyer logic/magic he can spin that says, within the letter (and damn the spirit) of the agreement that those actions are in fact perfectly acceptable within the agreed upon terms. You know, as long as we're walking a mile in CFC's shoes regarding letters, spirit, etc.

[kjn]

I know, but I think there is a thing missing from their diplomacy. Basically, you can only be their friend if you pay them, and pay them more all the time. From a pure short-term perspective, that can be a great approach, but it is likely to leave them very exposed if things start going badly for them.

That's not how I understand it. It's pretty simple when it comes to us. We are ahead of them. If we signed a straight up game-long NAP with CFC tomorrow with no string attached, they probably will not catch us economically. They understand this. [ snip ]

That's true. However, I still think there are times, even when dealing with a stronger party that you want to catch up with, when playing nice is better. As someone said here, they should take care to not alienate us too badly, because then we can push them to the #3 position, instead of the #2 they are in right now.

The original stone+spices for the NAP was fabulous for them - with some skillful play between T110 and T150 it pushed them from being #5 to #2 in the game. I think they should try to get as much as possible out of that deal while they can, and set themselves up for getting an equally good deal for them for the post-T175 period. But their current behaviour makes that harder for them.

Our handling of the German team was much better in that regard

I also think you misjudge CivPlayers here - they strike me as a very pragmatic team as well, but unlike CFC they are willing to give up something to gain something they deem worthwhile. We could reach a settling agreement with CivPlayers where we both agreed to give up something, in order to keep good relations.

Eh, things got better with CivPlayers when I started just saying nice things that didn't mean a whole lot. I think the land deal they made with us originally was pretty lousy for them. Decebal resisted, and then it that huge chat I focused on "sounding nice" and that helped. I dunno, that was just my feel, maybe I'm wrong.

I think there was more than "sounding nice" to getting a better communication with CivPlayers - the way I read it was that they misunderstood our first messages about border cities quite badly (or we weren't clear enough), but that you via nice talk in the chat managed to turn it into a situation that neither team was happy with but both could live with.

The land split did end up pretty lousy for them, but that wasn't because of the deal but because we had pushed hard for settling Brick by Brick. And we gave up a strong city position as well.

[antisocialmunky]

I think scooter and Sullla have said everything worth saying at this point.

Its kinda dickish that they claim that the pillage gold is crucial for their research though. That's awfully bold. How nice the world would be if CivFR weren't such hermits. Maybe we should ask CivPlayers if they've talked to CivFR in a while?